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exclusive audio interviews.

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unrestricted remote and on-site access to each text and audio file in the database. For full terms, please click here.

Rock's Backpages is the world's most comprehensive online database of pop music writing, a unique resource unavailable elsewhere online. It contains an
ever-expanding collection of primary-source full-text articles from the music and mainstream press from the 1950s to the present day, along with a collection of
exclusive audio interviews.

Subscriptions to Rock’s Backpages are available for institutional or personal use.

For institutions, Rock's Backpages is provided as an unlimited access subscription, meaning that all staff, students and library patrons have
unrestricted remote and on-site access to each text and audio file in the database. For full terms, please click here.

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Keith Altham

Mike Grant and Bill Phillips
are pseudonyms
for Keith Altham

A successful rock and roll scarred author, broadcaster, and New Musical Express features editor, Keith Altham interviewed the likes of the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, Frank Zappa, the Small Faces, Cliff Richard, Dusty, Cilla, Scott Walker, Ray Davies, Jim Morrison and The Beach Boys on innumerable occasions. In the early ‘60s he wrote for the legendary fan magazine Fabulous from its inception. Subsequently he became England’s most successful independent rock press agent for three decades from the early ‘70s representing most of those he had previously interviewed.

On radio Altham was a major contributor as news reader and interviewer for three years on BBC 2’s "Scene and Heard" which was "the music paper of radio" during the ‘60s and early ‘70s, More recently he contributed to BBC Radio 2’s programme on "The Changing Styles of Music Journalism" "Music Hype" and Virgin FMs "Tribute to Jimi Hendrix."

Altham is also accountable for giving Hendrix the idea of setting fire to his guitar, and is recorded as being the last person to interview him before his death; for saddling Reg Presley of the Troggs with his surname and turning Slade into skinheads for publicity purpose in the early ‘70s.

His first book The PR Strikes Back in the form of open letters to his famous clients over many years including The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Van Morrison, Sting, The Beach Boys, Status Quo, Phil Collins and The Who revealing his true feelings about them was printed by Blake Publishing and serialised in the Daily Mail in 2002.

K.A. Publicity, which he founded in 1971, represented the cream of British rock music over two decades including for several years, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beach Boys, Police, Slade, Status Quo, The Animals, Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, The Kinks, Scott Walker, Eddy Grant, Genesis, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, The Jam, The Stranglers, Marc Bolan, The Moody Blues, Steve Marriot, Carole King, Joan Armatrading, Elkie Brooks, and Manfred Mann. Altham retired his Press Agency and in 1993 BBC Radio 4 made Altham the subject of a tribute programme "The Godfather of Music PR" on which Sting, Roger Daltrey and Jagger testified to his skill.

He made early appearances on Granada’s TV series "My Generation" in the ‘90s "The Brit Girls" both in front of the camera and as a researcher. Other recent TV appearances include the Marc Bolan documentary "Dandy in the Underworld" for channel 4, a Mick Jagger feature for The Discovery Channel and a Jimi Hendrix profile for BBC I series "Reputations" plus two guest appearances for Noddy Holder’s Sky/Granada "Pop Quiz".

His latest research and on screen contributions include "Pop Panic", "Fame Set and Match" about the Rolling Stones and their old flames, a tribute documentary on Cilla Black and another on "Marc Bolan's Missing Millions", three more on Ray Davies, "The Hendrix Conspiracy" and "Mick Jagger's Women".

Altham is currently working on two books the first about his early life in the ‘60s, one provisionally titled When I was Fab, and a biography of a well-known superstar.